The trials and tribulations of turning 30...

I thought I might talk about my age, somewhat reluctantly, I say reluctantly because despite my pure joy of being alive, I actually hate that I’m in my 30s...

...there is a few reasons for this.

Look number one is easy, being 32 is hard because it makes me feel closer to death. Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds, but the truth is, I’m pretty messed up with the idea of death, I have no acceptance that we all die, I don’t like it at all in fact. All I know is consciousness, and seeing as we have no bloody clue about what happens to our consciousness, I’m gunna continue to be disturbed with the fact that it just ceases to exist. How!? When there was such a small chance I should exist, my thoughts and my feelings, my idiosyncrasies, my love of simple things dappled sunlight and my blind hatred of people who don’t signal when changing lanes 🤬 they are all little ingredients that make up me, and the fact that it can all just disappear in a second is bone chilling to be frank. 

Reason number two, I’m getting older, this isn’t tied in with the ‘I’m gunna die’ fear, this one has been engrained in me socially since I was born pretty much. I’m getting wrinkles, and it sucks because the world tells me it sucks, no matter how many times I try and silence that and tell myself it doesn’t matter, it feels like it really does, to the point where I’ve considered Botox...something I never thought I would ever consider...even a few years ago. There is nowt wrong with aging, but I’m finding the older I get the more obsolete I am feeling, like my days of doing what I do, of being relevant, are numbered. 

Please understand, I’m not saying I am, I’m just saying that this is the way I feel, I’m just being honest with you.

Part three is most troubling to me, when I turned 30, so many friends who were also transitioning into third decade where totally fine with it, looking forward to it even, after all, they say your 30s are your best years! Me however, as I’ve mentioned, I was depressed about the whole thing, and I think the main reason is tied up with my anxiety. I realised the other day that I felt I had wasted my 20s, and the reason I felt that way was because I hadn’t beaten the anxiety, I hadn’t beaten it when I was young and still had the opportunity to see the world, to travel care free, to galavant with my friends abroad. All I had seen in that decade is people I knew going to far off lands, meanwhile I was sat on the sofa with my phone watching. The day I turned 30 I felt like I’d lost that opportunity, that because of my travel anxiety, I missed my chance, and it made me feel wasteful, it made me feel regretful and it made me feel sad. Sure I can sort my anxiety out in my 30s, but this decade is about homes and bills and possibly kids, which brings me on to...

Reason number 4, I want kids, wait do I? Are my eggs dying? I feel like a teenager still but apparently I’m on my way to be a geriatric pregnancy if I wait a few years...GERIATRIC??? 

Oh I’m sorry, in a few years I would be a pregnant person in ‘advanced maternal age’, are you shitting me? And yet it’s true, and the worst part? I think I do want kids, but I could happily wait 10 years! And yes I know, they say no one ever feels ready, but what I mean is that I’m not ready for the ‘me time’ to be over. I like the me time, and as someone who has been living with different sets of parents for too long, once Will and I are in the house and finally living together, I want to live that for a good while! Long enough to enjoy the independence, the calm, a life just me and him, but in just 3 short years my chances of getting pregnant are nearly halved. I need more time and I’m running out. 

Turning 30 for me was clearly rough, but I’m learning to accept the new normal. When I turned 30 life kept going, everything was the same outwardly, and I’m learning to adjust my thoughts that way. Age and ageing is just something they tell you is bad, but who says ‘they’ make up the rules. If Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Helen Mirren are anything to go by, I think I’ll be just fine.